


The Flower of Tisarwat

by Idhren



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:11:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5466032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idhren/pseuds/Idhren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lt. Tisarwat grows into possession of her voice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Flower of Tisarwat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sprocket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprocket/gifts).



> Many thanks to stultiloquentia, thedeadparrot, and bironic for all your encouragement and wonderful conversations about major themes of the series and Radchaai culture / philosophy; our shared enthusiasm sustained and improved all that went into this.

The person in the body of Lt. Tisarwat stared up into darkness. The drugs Medic had given her numbed the body's distress, made the pathetic remnants of Tisarwat go quieter. She could almost think. 

The blanket Bo had wrapped around her was not the same.

She wanted to write. She didn't; there was no benefit. Tisarwat would have gotten up and fetched a pad, or some flimsies and a writing tool if she felt especially restless. Or asked Ship to record for her like she used to ask House, when she was living planetside.

There was no benefit in such indulgences now. She couldn't make Ship look away, couldn't bear the thought of _Mercy of Kalr_ sharing even more than what the body already betrayed with _Justice of Toren_ and Medic. 

The words came anyway.

_Must I subsist on glass_  
_like the dead departed?_  
_I was born in this body_  
_it is not mine_  
_it is what remains_  
_to me_

—o—

"Lieutenant," _Mercy of Kalr_ said in her ear, "Bo Nine is coming to check on you. Would you like to take your breakfast in the decade room today?"

She hunched in the blankets. Stared at the tea bowl within easy reach. The tea would be cold, now. 

"Would you like me to contact Medic?" _Mercy of Kalr_ asked.

If she took more of Medic's drugs, she could pretend it was the drugs that made everything feel not quite right. The drugs that made it all a bit off, like a dream or a play she couldn't leave.

Her fingers brushed her neck. She forced the body not to flinch. She moved the thumb — her thumb — to the center of the bruise, and pressed it. Pressed a little harder.

Footsteps.

When Bo Nine entered the room, she was sitting upright. "I'll be joining the decade for breakfast today," she managed to say without rasping too badly.

Bo's pleased surprise carried her through the awkwardness of dressing.

—o—

She spoke the familiar words and the Bos — _her_ Bos — spoke with her: _The flower of justice is peace. The flower of propriety is beauty in thought and action. The flower…_

'Rituals keep the breath moving' indeed.

"What's the morning's cast?" she asked _Mercy of Kalr_ automatically as she swallowed her first bite of skel. She had to swallow again against the sudden surge of nausea. That an _ancillary_ would handle the omen coins—!

—o—

She woke, bereft. That dream again. The one where she was in one of the right body, was one in many and never out of reach of other bodies Anaander to shift attention to when enduring a new body's immaturity. Very young bodies weren't wholly useless, of course; she had— _She_ had raised them in gardens around her server nodes, used their higher capacity for data integration to control and relay between the older proper bodies _She_ used in public and found most comfortable.

She wasn't Anaander any more. There were no other bodies to her to even out the distortions of being young and unfinished. 

_She_ had taken this unstable body to add to _Herself_ and Fleet Captain had killed _Her_ the way _She_ had killed Tisarwat and now she was expected to live for Tisarwat and be a baby Lieutenant for her Bos as if anything could ever be right again when she was no one real and she had to pretend she wasn't Houseless and utterly, painfully alone.

It wasn't right. She wasn't right. 

She could use that. 

_She made an ancillary_  
_of a_ citizen _, Tisarwat,_  
_innocent of any crime_  
_eager to be of service, sir_  
_I animate the corpse_  
_She left of her_  
_there are not gloves enough_  
_to shield the ashes_  
_of Tisarwat in my touch_

_would I were glass_  
_that I be sharpest_  
_where I am most broken_

_that I may cut open_  
_Her gloves for all_  
_Radchaai to see_

_if She grasps at this_  
_body for Her use again_

_I will turn in Her hand_  
_Her hand will be bared_

—o—

Horticulturalist Basnaaid Elming had _exquisite_ taste. The way her solemn face might ease into a rare smile was like Bo's grace: unexpected and numinous. Tisarwat found herself wanting to do anything to make Basnaaid smile more.

Tisarwat wanted her to look back with desire. Wanted her to see Tisarwat as a potential lover, not some child fresh from her aptitudes. She wanted to write Basnaaid poetry — real poetry, not the drivel the old Tisarwat would have written — wanted to write of intimacies that would show the depth and force of her feelings in words that would move Basnaaid to return them. 

_The Paloh have words_  
_for so many distinct smells_  
_they will not cook_  
_two ingredients in the same pot_  
_with contrary scents_  
_nor permit siblings to sit_  
_too close together_  
_lest their smells mingle_

_I would borrow a pair_  
_of your gloves if I could_  
_and sleep with them reversed_  
_next to my skin to soak_  
_up the essence I emit_  
_for three nights entire_

_you would turn them right_  
_and slip them on for public_  
_propriety, and underneath_  
_the gloves our smells_  
_would mingle past distinction_  
_two into one_

—o—

"Sir," Bo Four messaged. "There's a difficulty."

"What is it, Bo?" she messaged back, fingers twitching. She had heard nothing from _Mercy of Kalr_.

"Sir. _Sphene_ and the Translator had a question I can't answer, sir, and they won't stop asking. I think you'd better come."

Tisarwat controlled her face reflexively. "You did right to contact me. I'll be there shortly. Bo, if they are making you uncomfortable, you do not have to stay. They do not have the authority to require anything of you."

"Sir," said Bo Four, but did not end the connection.

She took a guess. "You may use my room to make your tea." 

"Thank you, sir."

She found the _Sphene_ ancillary and Translator Zeiat huddled over their game of counters in the decade room. There now appeared to be eggshells involved, somehow. Bo Four was gone; good.

"Lieutenant!" said the Translator, twisting around with unsettling eagerness. "We have a problem you can solve for us!" 

Translator Dlique would have been so much easier to deal with.

"What is your problem, Translator?"

The Translator pouted. " _Sphene_ says I can't break the tea bowls for our game. But I need them!"

"We need bodies for hearts, Lieutenant," said the _Sphene_ ancillary. It smiled. "Could you loan us some of your Bos?"

" _No_ ," she said. Breathed. Said firmly, "The bodies of my Bos are not to be counters in your game. You may not use them." What would Fleet Captain do? "Why don't you use fish-cakes instead of tea bowls, Translator? You could dunk them in the tea if you needed."

" _The priest is not the god_ ," said the _Sphene_ ancilliary in Notai. It was no longer smiling.

She felt herself freeze. In Anaander Mianaai's memories, no disloyal Notai had lived to repeat that charge for three thousand years. 

_Sphene_ made a satisfied gesture, and turned its attention back to the board. It said, as if to no one, "If the Usurper were here, I would put my hands around her neck right now and strangle her to death."

She forced herself to breathe. 

The _Sphene_ ancillary took a red counter from one hole and moved it to another, taking a blue counter from the second hole and moving that back to the first. The Translator made an intrigued noise, and put its head down on the board to stare at the first hole up close.

_Sphene_ turned back to look at her. "My cousin tells me you are Tisarwat, no?"

"I am," she said. Enough of this. " _Sphene_ , Translator, do you want me to fetch you fish-cakes or not?" 

Translator Zeiat raised its head in interest. "Yes, please, Lieutenant Tisarwat! And another egg; _Sphene_ is going to need it." The Translator waved a dripping eggshell in emphasis; the _Sphene_ ancillary glanced into the bowl of tea by the game board and began to curse.

—o—

_I dreamed I was Translator_  
 _for the Anaander_

_there was a darling fish_  
_gasping for a bowl of tea_

_inside me. I could feel_  
_its sides scrape on mine_

_No matter how many fragments_  
_of Notai gold-and-glass_

_I swallowed I could not_  
_assemble a bowl complete._

_the fish gasped and gasped and gasped_  
_and I could not hold the tea_

—o—

On the occasion of Tisarwat's eighteenth birthday, she received a sheath of beautiful paper, with a weight she had missed in the flimsies more common to ship and station life, and a handwritten note from Citizen Piat.

_Your eyes like temple flowers_  
_dedicated to beginning and ending_  
_the universe in between_

_Oh_ , she thought, and felt the bloom of it.


End file.
